I came up upon a series of articles by Meghan O'Rourke, written in 2009. She talks about her grief with respect to the death of her mother.
She has put into words many of the things I am feeling. At times, it is like she is reading my mind. I find that interesting in some sense-- the possibility that grief has a universal effect on our minds. Do we all look to nature? Do we all feel ourselves questioning our lives, our belief system, our place in the world? Do we all look to metaphors for our loss?
Here is a link to her articles (9 in total):
http://www.slate.com/id/2211257/entry/2211256/
I've also just recently read Joan Didion's novel, 'The Year of Magical Thinking' (thanks to Amanda for mailing it to me). She recounts the sudden death of her husband and her thoughts and actions in the year following his death. There are certainly parallels between her account of grief and those described by O'Rourke, at times, in quite an uncanny way. One concept, in the most general sense, is how our thoughts are transformed by grief, to the extent that you think and do (somewhat) irrational things that you would not have previously done. I'm not sure I agree with the term 'magical thinking' and certainly would not insinuate this altered thinking lasts for only a year. I think I'd go with 'inspired thought' to capture how I see it (but it doesn't really work as a catchy title for a book, does it?).
Tonight I was out stocking up on groceries late at night-- something that is possible when my mom is visiting. The store was empty, aside from a few lone(ly) shoppers and night staff. Then I heard the music overhead: 'A Little Respect' by Erasure. I couldn't avoid singing-- out loud (albeit quiet-ish). If Mike was there, he would have been dancing backwards, in the grocery store, singing aloud to me, in a hand-turned-microphone kinda way. Why am I so certain he would have done that? I can practically see him in motion. This happens to me a lot. Is this 'magical thinking'?.... 'inspired thought'?
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